"Open your hearts to my words," he boomed as he spread wide his arms, splaying his arthritic fingers, like the eagle of the pines we all feared or revered. To soar above and gain a higher perspective, oh glory be, but what price glory to leave the safety of the grounded certainty that we know.

"Hear thy voice in mine and my in thine," he continued but all I could hear was his voice and my heart pounding.

"There will come a time for each of you to make the journey of the heart to the Tower. Therein you will encounter the Staircase. Each Stair holds a lesson and the Staircase offers many lessons for those who desire its Knowledge. Yet the Knowledge of the Staircase comes with a price. Only if you agree to pay the price, a commitment to pain and suffering, may you enter the Staircase. And once you have paid your entry fee, you must complete your climb, no matter how much pain you suffer nor how much time it takes."

Pain? Suffering? These were words unknown to my heart whose knowledge were the joys of banana cream pie noses and ten-minute tickle sessions.

"The purpose of your journey to the Tower is to reach the Top of the Tower. And there are many ways to reach the Top. On the Top, you will be faced with many illusions. These illusions will disguise themselves. Some will be thoughts. Some will be things. And some will be people. Their disguises are not deceptions and they intend you no harm. Only you will know if they are real or not. You will know by carrying your truth with you to the Top. For all illusions abandon their disguises when you show them your truth. Truth is the only way you will gain Knowledge."

The Presence paused for a moment while I saw myself on the Top of the Tower offering a candied apple to a Halloween marauder who pops off his mask and shouts, "It's me!"

"The purpose of your journey to the Tower is to reach the Top. Now, I ask you, what is the purpose of reaching the Top?" The Presence looked around at us as we looked at each other. But nobody dared to offer an answer.

"To Jump Off."

If silence is the absence of any noise, and death is the absence of any life, the feeling of the gathering at that moment was far less than either silence or death.

"Many who came before found their way to the Top. Those who carried their truth with them did jump. It is their jump that has made room for you to be here now. And that has prepared room for your place on the Top. It is here, it is now, and now later, not then on Top, that you must declare your truth and answer this question:

"Will You Jump?"